Brock Lesnar And Goldberg Will Be Kept Apart Until Their Match At ‘Survivor Series’

Paul Heyman’s appearance on Monday’s Raw turned out to be more than just a promotional appearance for the WWE 2K17 video game, which comes out today for PlayStation 4 and XBox One. Sure, he promoted the video game, which his client — Brock Lesnar — is on the cover of. But, he also called out Bill Goldberg, saying that Brock Lesnar would be willing to fight him anytime.

The Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar WrestleMania 20 rematch has been rumored for several months now, and several wrestling news outlets — most notably the Wrestling Observer Newsletter— have reported that the match will be taking place at next month’s Survivor Series show in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Up until Monday, the match was all but confirmed for Survivor Series, and technically, it’s still not official, but Goldberg is advertised for next week’s Raw in Denver, Colorado, where he’ll likely accept Lesnar’s challenge.

If you’re expecting Lesnar to confront Goldberg next week, you’ll probably be disappointed, because, according to Cageside Seats, Lesnar and Goldberg are going to be kept apart until their match at Survivor Series.

“Brock Lesnar is not expected to be at Raw with Goldberg next week. The plan is to keep them apart for now, and possibly until Survivor Series.”

Cageside Seats also noted that Lesnar will probably return to WWE television in two weeks, when Raw takes place in his billed hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

By the time Goldberg enters the ring at Survivor Series, it’ll have been over twelve years since he last wrestled. In fact, his very last match was against Brock Lesnar back at WrestleMania 20, which is a match that is remembered for being one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history. Of course, the circumstances will be a lot different now than they were back then, as both men were planning to leave the company the night after their first encounter, which is why the match was such a dud.

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the Goldberg vs. Lesnar match is taking place at Survivor Series instead of WrestleMania 33 for two reasons: one, WWE wants the match to happen as close to the release of the 2K17 video game as possible, because they believe that it’ll help boost sales. Reason number two is because WWE already has another opponent in mind for Lesnar at WrestleMania 33, and that opponent is probably Shane McMahon.

As of right now, the Goldberg return at Survivor Series is going to be a one-off, and there won’t be a third match between him and Lesnar. Of course, Goldberg could come back and face someone else at WrestleMania 33, but, as of this writing, WWE is planning on using him in Orlando next spring.

Goldberg did say in a WWE.com interview that he has more than just one match left in him. Also, during his appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter last week, he said that there are a ton of people on the current WWE roster that he’d like to have a match with, so, it’s possible that we could see him in the ring with someone else in the future.

Paul Heyman did point out that Goldberg defeated Lesnar back at WrestleMania 20, so the story is that Lesnar is coming to get his revenge, which probably means that “The Beast” will end up winning the rematch at Survivor Series.

This is now the third time that 2K Sports has brought a pro wrestling legend back to WWE — they did it with The Ultimate Warrior following the release of WWE 2K14, and they did it with Sting following the release of WWE 2K15.